Saç Kavurma (Turkish Sautéed Spiced Lamb)

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Saç kavurma is a Turkish dish of diced lamb seared hot and fast with onions, peppers and tomatoes. You don’t need a special pan, since a wok or a cast iron skillet works great, and it’s on the table in about half an hour with rice or warm flatbread.

Saç kavurma takes its name from the saç, a wide, shallow metal pan set over high heat. Turkish cooks often serve it right in the pan it cooked in, so it comes to the table still sizzling.

Kavurma is also a traditional dish for Kurban Bayramı, the Turkish name for Eid al-Adha, when families share the meat of the holiday lamb with relatives and neighbors.

I adapted my recipe from The Turkish Cookbook by Musa Dağdeviren, a big collection of regional Turkish home cooking.

The seasoning is simple: oregano, cumin, red pepper and salt. The peppers and tomatoes cook down into just enough sauce to coat the lamb, a lot like a Turkish stir-fry.

When you have more time, Turkish lamb and apricot stew simmers lamb low and slow with sweet apricots.

What Is Saç Kavurma?

Kavurma comes from the Turkish verb kavurmak, to roast or fry, and it means meat seared in its own fat. Saç is the pan it cooks in.

A saç is a wide, shallow metal pan that works two ways. One way up, it’s a griddle for thin flatbreads. Flip it over, and it’s a pan for searing meat at very high heat.

If you’d like to try the real thing, here’s a Turkish saç pan. A wok works just as well at home.

The word traveled a long way. It’s behind qovurma in Azerbaijan, qormeh in Iran, as in ghormeh sabzi, one of the Persian stews like Persian lamb and rhubarb stew, and the korma of Indian and Pakistani cooking. Those dishes went their own ways long ago, but they share the name.

Ingredients for Saç Kavurma

Lamb is the classic choice, and Turkish cooks make kavurma with beef too. Goat works the same way.

Most of the flavor comes from searing, so the spice list is short. Have everything diced before the pan goes on the heat.

• Lamb: Boneless leg or loin, trimmed of sinew and diced small and even. If your store doesn’t carry lamb, Crowd Cow sells grass-fed lamb by mail.
• Ghee or rendered lamb fat: Ghee handles high heat without burning. For the traditional flavor, use rendered lamb fat, like this grass-fed lamb tallow.
• Onion: A large yellow onion, chopped.
• Hot chili peppers: Turkish cooks use long, thin green peppers. Anaheim peppers or jalapeños work, depending on how much heat you like.
• Sweet pepper: Any bell pepper. A yellow or orange one adds color.
• Tomatoes: Ripe, medium tomatoes, chopped. They cook down into a light sauce at the end.
• Dried oregano: The main herb in a lot of Turkish meat dishes.
• Red pepper flakes: Turkish pul biber, also sold as Aleppo pepper, is milder and fruitier than regular red pepper flakes.
• Ground cumin: Adds a warm, earthy note that goes well with lamb.
• Salt: Start light and add more at the end.
• Rice or flatbread: For serving.

Fat-tailed sheep are common across the Middle East, and their rendered tail fat is the traditional fat for kavurma. A whole lamb tail is hard to come by in the United States, so ghee is the easy stand-in. If your lamb has some fat on it, you’ll need less ghee in the pan.

Dice the lamb into small, even pieces so it sears quickly and every piece cooks at the same rate. Leg and loin stay tender with fast cooking, while tougher cuts like shoulder are better slow cooked in a dish like Lebanese lamb stew with eggplant.

How to Make Saç Kavurma

This is fast, hot cooking, so dice everything before you turn on the stove. Once the lamb goes in, you’ll be stirring most of the time.

Use the biggest pan you have. The amounts are in the recipe card.

Heat the Pan

Heat a saç, a wok or a large cast iron skillet over high heat until it’s very hot. Add the ghee and heat it for about a minute, until it shimmers and just starts to smoke.

A thin wok heats up fastest. Cast iron takes longer, but it holds its heat when the cold meat goes in.

Sear the Lamb

Add the diced lamb and cook it over high heat for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring constantly. It gives off some juice at first, then the juice cooks away and the meat starts to brown in the fat.

Keep the heat high the whole time. If the meat is still simmering in liquid after a few minutes, your pan is too crowded, so scoop out half and sear it in two batches.

Add the Onion

Stir in the onion and cook for another 8 to 10 minutes, until it’s soft and golden at the edges.

The onion picks up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan as it cooks, so keep scraping as you stir.

Add the Peppers and Spices

Add the hot peppers, sweet pepper, oregano, red pepper flakes, cumin and salt. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring, until the peppers soften.

Taste a piece of lamb now and add a little more salt if it needs it.

Finish with the Tomatoes

Add the tomatoes and cook for about 5 minutes more, until they break down into a light sauce that coats the meat.

Take the pan off the heat and serve it right away, while it’s still sizzling.

Serving Saç Kavurma

Serve saç kavurma with plain rice or bulgur pilaf, or tuck it into warm flatbread. A bowl of plain yogurt and some thin-sliced onion with parsley round it out.

In Turkey, people often eat it with lavaş or pide, flatbreads that are good for scooping up the meat and juices.

Leftovers keep in the fridge for 3 to 4 days. Warm them in a hot skillet so the lamb crisps up again.

For more lamb from around the world, try Icelandic lamb soup, Mongolian buuz dumplings or cauliflower stew with lamb. Goat fans will like Portuguese chanfana, goat chops with garlic and herbs, or oven-roasted goat ribs.

Other Kinds of Kavurma

There’s also a winter kavurma. Before refrigerators, families cooked lamb from the fall slaughter slowly in its own fat and sealed it under a layer of that fat to last through the winter.

The same tradition shows up as awarma in Lebanon, where cooks often fry it with eggs, a lot like Lebanese eggs with lamb and pine nuts, and as qawarma in Iraq. Today it’s a good way to put lamb fat to use, and there’s more on cooking with animal fat if you’d like to try it.

Saç kavurma is the quick version, and you eat it hot from the pan. If you’d like lamb ready on the shelf instead, there’s a whole guide to canning lamb and mutton.

Saç Kavurma FAQs

Here are answers to the questions readers ask most about this dish.

More Middle Eastern Recipes

Stews, eggs and lamb dishes from Turkey, Lebanon and Persia.

Lebanese Lamb Stew with Eggplant

Persian Lamb and Rhubarb Stew (Khoresht Rivas)

Lebanese Butternut Squash Stew (Vegan Slow Cooker)

More Lamb Recipes

More ways to cook lamb from kitchens around the world.

Mongolian Buuz (Steamed Meat Dumplings)

Icelandic Lamb Soup (Kjötsúpa)

Portuguese Chanfana (Braised Goat or Lamb)